Questo e Quello
An unlikely but adept English-language vocal stylist, Cecilia Bartoli, led the cast of a revival of the 2007 Zurich staging of Handel’s Semele, transferred to the Theater an der Wien for a short run. Director Robert Carsen takes an occasional liberty: Juno and Jupiter emerge as British royals, for instance, she a wellie-wearer and devotee…
“Zinta Lundborg is a writer for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.” [Bloomberg]
The Board of Directors of New York City Opera has announced that Charles R. Wall was unanimously elected Chairman of the Board effective December 16, 2010. He succeeds Susan L. Baker, who will “step down” after seven years of “dedicated service.”
Lots of media news today, so let’s not waste any time! La Cieca congratulates Opera News on the occasion of the mag’s 75th anniversary this month, though your doyenne is willing to swear that the mag doesn’t look a day over 60!
Maria Callas died 33 years ago, September 16, 1977.
Only a few hours left before voting in the “Greatest Divas” poll is closed! You have until midnight tonight to add your vote to the more than 15,000 already cast.
Now, don’t you go thinking that Peter Gelb doesn’t listen to his public, which intersects quite steeply, of course, with the cher public. For instance, just the other day La Cieca and a couple of others were lamenting that opera has lost some of it mad silly gay folie lately. Lo and behold, today it…
“It doesn’t fucking matter if he means it, because the dancers need to dance!” No, that’s not, in fact, the refrain of the latest techno hit burning up the dancefloor, but rather society chronicler David Patrick Columbia, talking with Zachary Woolfe about “the web of money, power and ambiguous motives that has for a long…
Our Own JJ emerges from estivation to look forward, Erda-like, toward “the” event of the fall season, plus six more must-sees.
Our Own JJ will have a news item or two tomorrow, but until then, a couple of YouTube clips follow: a remake of a classic and a reimagining of a classic. La Cieca is confident the cher public (pictured) will have opinions.
Two minds with but a single frock: Marina Poplavskaya in the Met’s new Traviata (due December 31) and Emma Watson in the November 19 release Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
“As Ernesto, Barry Banks struggled against an allergic reaction and a humiliatingly camp pink get-up…” [The Telegraph]
La Cieca invites the cher public to act as blue-ribbon panel in selecting the singers to be included in the “Greatest Diva” study. Voting after the jump.
In a whole month of guessing at our most recent Regie quiz, only Melot’s Younger Brother and PirateJenny were able to narrow in on what is after all a very fringey part of the opera repertoire: Graun’s Montezuma, with a libretto by Frederick the Great. (The work was directed for the Edinburgh International Festival by…
When Hans Von Bülow joked that Rienzi was Meyerbeer’s best opera, he was not very far off the mark. In fact, Rienzi, der Letze der Tribunen, Wagner’s third opera, has all the traits of a typical “grand opéra”: it is divided in five acts, features a historical character or situation, makes large use of the…
At the request of a member of the cher public, La Cieca has updated the Little Shop of Arias store here at parterre. Available for preorder from amazon.com are such goodies as a new DVD of I puritani starring Nino Machaidze and Juan Diego Flórez.
American soprano Ailyn Perez made her Royal Opera debut last night on the company’s tour in Japan, singing two-thirds of the role of Violetta when the scheduled soprano, Ermonela Jaho, canceled after a rocky first act. (Jaho herself was a late substitute for the ever more elusive Angela Gheorghiu.) A witness to the performance says,…
After years (or was it months) wandering der Irrnis und der Leiden Pfade, La Cieca has returned to the broadcast booth for another episode of Unnatural Acts of Opera.
Readers of parterre.com are, La Cieca calculates, about six weeks ahead of the curve, so your doyenne figures you are ready to hear what will likely be a major scoop in the New York Times a few days prior to Halloween. It’s about the technical rehearsals for the Met’s season opener Das Rheingold, and what is…
Betsy’s recovered (if you can call it that) from last weekend’s marathon, and apparently game for more. If you’re feeling likewise, the meeting is at the usual location.
UPDATE: The Royal Opera has apologized to Intermezzo!
La Cieca was delighted, amused and infuriated (three of her favorite emotions) when she read yet another wonderful piece over at The Awl yesterday, a statistical analysis determining The Greatest Diva of the Past 25 Years. This treatise, by one Jay Caspian Kang, was limited in scope to ladies inhabiting the realm of popular music,…
When Peter Gelb really wants an artist at the Met, he pulls out all the stops. La Cieca hears that Bryn Terfel, on his way back to New York after a brief visit with his family back in Wales, arrived at the airport in the UK this morning only to discover he left his passport…
La Cieca wishes she could write a caption so deadpan.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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